Election days come and go. But the struggle of the people to create a government which represents all of us and not just the one per cent — a government based on the principles of economic, social, racial and environmental justice — that struggle continues.
The national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress and former Lagos state governor, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, penned this incisive piece on “Restructuring”. Read on… In one way or another, we all have felt the sting of man’s capacity to wrong his fellow man. But we are also endowed with the God-given spirit to overcome adversity and to make of old enemies, new allies, and even brothers. We must clearly articulate our objectives. That which we cannot think clearly, will not be attained despite the magnitude of our exertions and expenditure to achieve it. One cannot be assured that an architect’s fine design will result in a fine building. Much can go awry during the process of transforming an idea into brick and mortar. However, we can be certain that a masterful building is never the result of flawed design. In this vein, I dabble not so much in the search for a new Nigeria. I am equally not enthused about the flaws of old Nigeria. What I seek is a better Nigeria. I care not whether something is old or new but whether it shall make us better. Not all change is good. Not every new thing shall be kind to us. Yes, Nigeria must change but some of the changes we need cannot be bought at the store of the new. Many things we need are shelved in the warehouse of the old. Just as we must learn new things, on one hand, we must remember vital old wisdom on the other. The trend today is to believe progress and improvement are basically functions of technology and science. That politics and governance matter little and change almost nothing. That talk of political reform spills out of the leaking chalice of dreamers. Or is but an intoxicant used by cynical political operators to delude the public. Skepticism abounds. The only strong belief is to disbelieve. Not enough people seek to improve society. They are told that only the foolish look out for his neighbour and respects his adversary. They are taught the only thing to do is to look out for one’s self. If thy neighbour stumbles, reach down not to pick him up but to take those things he dropped while falling. Self-profit is the only commandment. All else is make-believe, things heard in the church and mosque but to be left there and not pursued in the course of everyday life. The very dynamics of the current political economy is to separate people from one another. Such mean isolation was never part of us but it has crept into our culture. Of this brand of newness, I want no part. The world has entered a period where progressive, humane reform is not fashionable. We are told to be practical, to accept the way things are. There is no struggle over competing ideals; we are told the current political economy is immutable. The only thing that matters is whether you master its dynamics to succeed or you sink and fail. To attempt to change things is as futile as trying to change the sky and clouds themselves. This is a blatant lie. Change is possible and change, we must. There is no such thing as having no ideology. Every political and economic institution is founded on one thought system or another. To accept the false premise that there is no alternative to how things are is to acquiesce in the unfair ideology that has brought us to our current predicament. In the hard sciences such as physics, chemistry or mathematics, one can speak of immutable principles and objective formula. In the affairs of men, most things are subjective. Virtue and vice, good and bad, what is optimal and what is not have any fixed meaning. Definitions change with the ideological and moral perspective of each person. In the face of recession, one man fires most of his employees in order to maintain his own income level. Another man accepts to receive less income so that he may retain his workers. Two men faced with the same circumstance. Each made a decision of equal soundness with regard to the rational or intellectual quality of the thinking processes that led to the decisions. However, the decisions call forth two divergent value systems that suggest two vastly different visions of how the political economy should function whether in or out of a crisis. As in almost all social interactions, there are few acts devoid of subjective ideological coloration. The decisions we make are determined by how we would like the world to be – our very actions are determined by what we value so as to keep and what we are willing to discard when the ship of state is tossed either by storm or errant navigation. Since there is no one objective optimal standard by which to construct a political economy, it would seem prudent for a nation to dedicate a healthy amount of time discussing this fundamental matter. For such is the surest path to reaching consensus on what economic development and good governance mean in our particular context. Sadly, the obverse is true. We talk little about this core issue. Instead, we spend inordinate time bickering over the symptoms of our failure to discuss the core issue. We are like the bewildered couple who have gotten their marriage licence after a lavish wedding, yet neither of them really understands the meaning of marriage or their roles as husband and wife in it. Legally, they are married but functionally, their union is a crippled one. This couple will be at loggerheads until somehow, someway they forge an agreement on what type of home they want and what are their respective duties in making that home come into existence. It is a rather curious lapse that a nation with such diversity as ours has not taken the time to give our legal marriage it’s proper functional underpinning. In other words, we all lined up to call ourselves Nigerian
We may like to think that politics is a battle of ideas and that the best idea wins out. But that is not true in most elections, most elections are about the worst ideas losing, not the best ideas winning.~ Chuck Todd We are in the penultimate year of the elections and expectedly politicking is once again in high gear. Even as the economy groans in a crippling fuel scarcity, the citizens are slaughtered and abducted in mind-numbing numbers, our politicians have descended into a frenzy of comical photo-ops, bacchanal solidarity visits, and insipid political rallies. It may not be wrong to suggest that Obasanjo’s letter triggered the orgy of activities, for much as the euphoria over his missive fizzled out when the opposition PDP dismissed his coalition, the former president has continued holding meetings and consultations. Buhari has since then saddled former Lagos state governor and party leader Bola Tinubu with the unenviable task of mending fences within the ruling party. A task which has predictably hit a rocky path in just a few days with allegations and denials between Asiwaju and the party chairman John Oyegun. Where will Tinubu start? Is it with Shehu Sani and El-Rufai? or Rochas and Ararume? Amaechi versus Abe and Melaye against Bello? Of course political differences are rarely personal and some of these characters have been friends for ages. Corruption often unites them more than personal ambition separates them. So we expect to see some hugs and back patting but which ever way you look at it, Tinubu’s mission is a terribly difficult one. Be that as it may the battle for power and political office in 2019 will only get fiercer as the year progresses. Indeed we have been treated to a preamble as Senator Abdullahi Adamu led a walk out on his colleagues as amendments to the Electoral Act which effected a change in the election schedule were passed. As if the amendment wasn’t an adequate warning to the presidency the lawmakers have reportedly threatened to override a contrary presidential veto, a move which has been interpreted in political circles as unpalatable to the presidency. It is not as if Saraki, a seasoned lawmaker is unaware that even as INEC has filed a suit in the apex court any rookie lawyer can hold up the amendments in a court till after the elections, rather he appreciates the value of every punch in political battles even if its just a jab for testing the waters. Sadly governance is often neglected in the midst of all these and the masses suffer. That the APC led administration hasn’t performed any better is a truism. The government has so far not lived up to its promise to improve the lives of ordinary Nigerians. This is an undeniable fact no matter your ethno-religious or partisan sentiment. Let me not bother you with the all too familiar tableau of our tragedies which was recently capped by the abduction of over 100 school girls in Dapchi community, Yobe state. A shameful recurrence of the infamous Chibok kidnap that the president himself rightly described as “a national disaster”. So if we consider the opening quote by Chuck Todd a plausible explanation to why Nigerians chose Buhari over Jonathan in the last presidential election then a pertinent question arises; Are there available candidates to make re-electing Buhari the worst idea? Of course, there are plenty. I for one believe that Peter Obi, Nasir El-Rufai, and Babatunde Fashola have what it takes to perform better as the president of this country. I don’t really give a hoot about what you think of them, this is my opinion which I’m entitled to. These men are young workaholics, they are achievers and their records speak for themselves. Assuming these men declare their intention to contest the election, a second question however follows; What is the probability that any will clinch his party’s ticket let alone going ahead to defeat Buhari in the polls? The chances are remote and therein lies the stark reality. Of course, there are some who will argue that it is because Buhari’s supporters are largely illiterate or ignorant. Please perish that elitist narrative because they constitute a majority of the electorate, the same electorate that sent Trump to the White House in one of the most advanced countries and what some consider the greatest democracy in the world. Others will query the benefit of having that section of the populace as a dominant determinant in the power equation if in retrospect another candidate ‘could’ have done better? Well, the truth is that whether or not the capture of political power by the proletariat appears superfluous after the fact, what really makes democracy imperative is the possibility of such conquest which can bring the political elite back to reality albeit temporarily. So are we back to square one? Have we found ourselves in a worse situation than in 2015 when many felt the leading choices were poor? Well whatever anyone may think, the likelihood of APC losing the next election is practically very small. For one they are in power. If they could take power from the outside how much more now they are inside? Then secondly the power is concentrated around the Hausa-Fulani whom the rest of the country have unwittingly ascribed some mythical extra-terrestrial political powers too. So the only way APC will lose power in 2019 is if the party defeats itself with complete disintegration. I can predict that such is unlikely to happen if we are to judge by the characteristic selfishness of our politicians. If Buhari eventually decides to run again the only serious contender left in the ruling party that could decamp is Alhaji Rabiu Kwankwaso. Anyone who believes that the former governor can win Kano which Buhari has never lost in previous elections must be a greenhorn in Nigerian politics. And if you think that Obasanjo and IBB wrote letters because they truly care about you then I’m sorry for you. The real
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